YouGov poll shows support for Welsh independence is essentially unchanged after the Queen's death - could this be another sign that the same will prove to be true in Scotland?

It's still the case (as far as I can see, anyway) that there has been only one poll on Scottish independence since the death of the Queen - that was the Deltapoll survey that The Sun infamously lied through their teeth about, even though they had commissioned it themselves.  Leaving aside that newspaper's nonsense about the poll showing Yes support had "plummeted" (long since hastily deleted after multiple complaints were lodged with the press regulator on the grounds of inaccuracy), it actually wasn't much use at all in terms of gauging the trend.  It showed Yes on 47% and No 53%, which aren't especially untypical numbers for recent times - but because Deltapoll haven't previously polled on independence, there was no baseline available from which to make a direct comparison, and thus no way of knowing whether Yes support had picked up a bit, dropped back a bit, or stayed steady.

What we do now have, though, is a poll on Welsh independence from a firm that has polled on that subject many times before.  It was conducted around two weeks after the Queen's death, and shows only trivial changes that should not be considered statistically significant.

Should Wales be an independent country? (YouGov, 20th-22nd September 2022)

Yes 24% (-1)

No 52% (+2)

Obviously those figures haven't excluded Don't Knows, and in contrast to the standard for Scottish polls, there's no sign in the data tables of what the numbers are without Don't Knows. However, a rough calculation suggests they would be around: Yes 32%, No 68%.

Not only has the Yes vote suffered a mere one-point drop that can be easily explained by margin-of-error noise, it remains the case that the Yes vote is higher than in all four YouGov polls conducted between March 2021 and March 2022, in which it always stood at either 21% or 22%.  So if we see a similar trend in Scotland, the Yes vote may have sailed through the BBC's Brit Nat propaganda fest completely unscathed, and when surveys from the regular pollsters are resumed, we may well see Yes averaging in the high 40s, just as before.

I suppose the only caveat is that support for Welsh independence is significantly lower than support for Scottish independence, and thus the Welsh Yes vote may be comprised more of diehards who were never going to be budged by royal coverage on TV.  In contrast, there may be a larger number of "soft Yesses" in Scotland who were more susceptible to the BBC's shock and awe campaign.  So we'll still have to wait and see, but the reality is that Liz Truss has indirectly done us a favour, because conventional politics is now back with a bang and few people are even thinking about the Royal Family anymore.

(Incidentally, the last few days have also been GREAT news for the surprising figure of Sir Anthony Eden.  In the historical rankings of post-war Prime Ministers compiled by academics, Eden has always been absolutely rock bottom, due to the fact that he was only in office for two years and pretty much the only thing he managed to 'achieve' during that period was the unmitigated catastrophe of Suez.  But I suspect he may now have finally met his match in Liz Truss.  It takes a very special sort of Prime Minister to bring about economic meltdown within twenty days of assuming office.)

When the grandchildren of today's BBC Scotland News team say "and where were you, gran and grandad, during the Great Economic Crisis of 2022?", the reply will be "oh, we were talking about ferries, and asking whether Nicola Sturgeon will pass on the tax cuts to deserving lawyers"

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) September 29, 2022

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POLL FUNDRAISING FOR SCOT GOES POP

The recent incident with The Sun makes the case eloquently for crowdfunded opinion polls commissioned by pro-indy alternative media outlets like Scot Goes Pop.  Not only did The Sun get their pollster to ask truly ridiculous questions (like "did you CRY after the Queen died?") to try to artificially generate a picture of Scotland being at one with the rest of the UK, they also then brazenly lied about the poll's results.  Because the data tables hadn't been published at that point, it took a long time for us to discover we were being lied to about the supposedly "plummeting Yes vote", and by that point some of the damage was already done in terms of public perception.  But with crowdfunded polls for a pro-indy outlet, we get to choose which questions are asked, and we can also make very sure the results are reported accurately right from the start.  I'm continuing to fundraise for a seventh Scot Goes Pop poll, and also more generally to help keep Scot Goes Pop going - it's been slow progress this time (totally understandable given the cost of living crisis) but we're gradually getting there.  If you'd like to donate, here are the various options...

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